Proposed is a series of studies to analyze the relationship between alcohol drinking pattern and coronary heart disease in black and white men and women from the general population of two counties in Western New York. Specifically, the independent relationship between various aspects of lifelong patterns of alcohol drinking such as frequency (daily vs. non-daily), quantity per occasion (number of drinks per occasion), beverage type, setting (with or without meals) and non-fatal incident myocardial infarction will be examined in population-based case-control study. Cases will include 200 black males, 300 white males, 160 black females, and 400 white females, aged 35 to 69 years. The cases will be compared to randomly selected controls (2480) from the general population of Erie and Niagara Counties, age 35-69 years. In addition, the controls from this study and the accompanying lung cancer study (total controls n-3830) will be used to develop a data base of biochemical (plasma, serum cells and urine), lifestyle (drinking pattern, physical activity, diet, smoking) and psychosocial factors, to address, in the future, a number of specific questions with regard to the epidemiology of alcohol use/abuse and chronic disease. The proposed study offers the possibility of addressing a number of important questions on the relationship between the complex issues of alcohol use and chronic disease. These questions will be addressed using the same study population (sharing controls for both the proposed MI and the accompanying lung cancer study, and the use of randomly-selected controls from the population allowing for the analysis of the correlates [nutritional, chronic disease risk, psychosocial, demographic, lifestyle] of the various aspects of drinking pattern). These aims will be addressed while establishing a data base that can address other important issues with a longitudinal design in future studies